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It wasn’t often game night was hosted at Fenris’ appropriated estate.
Morrigan suspected foul play, took her seat in the corner with a glass of wine she knew she’d nurse all night and a small plate of crackers and cheese she’d supplied.
The others, Anders and Lessa, Isabela, Merrill and Varric, were well into the swing of things, drinks half drunk and laughter loud.
Aveline and Donnic kept to themselves, new to game night and newer still to each other. They drank and ate and joined in on conversations that gravitated to their corner of the large room but otherwise kept to themselves.
Fenris, the somewhat reluctant host, was in her corner, a bottle of wine in hand and a scowl in place.
She knew him enough to know the scowl was one of amusement and not one of annoyance.
And she knew him well enough to know something was going on without her knowledge.
Suspicions on high, she joined the table in the middle of the room, took her place between Fenris and an empty chair, a chair meant for one missing chantry boy.
She smiled when she was nudged in the side by her passing twin, hid it behind her hair as the comments started up and her cheeks set to burning.
Playful turned to teasing, teasing turned to lewd and Morrigan wondered not for the first time why she ever bothered turning up for game night at all, on the rare occasions that she did.
She had to remind herself that it was too early in the night for murder.
It was Aveline who shut them all up, and the comments died with a chorus of mild booing.
The game started shortly after that, when glasses were topped off and snacks shared around. The cards were dealt, the betting starting low, growing high and higher still as those who knew little tried to outmanoeuvre those who knew a lot.
It was guaranteed that Anders would lose, and when Varric turned the cards, no one was surprised to see a losing hand.
The mage had no luck at all.
The cards quickly shifted, gave way to chatter, gave way to something else.
It was Lessa who set the bottle in the middle of the table, a grin on her face and madness in her eyes, and it was then Morrigan knew, a different game entirely to the one she was about to suggest was at foot.
“No,” Aveline cut in, no-nonsense scowl in place before Lessa had even uttered a word.
She was quickly overruled, and that Donnic sided with the common rabble raised Aveline’s ire.
They started, stupid things here and there, and for the twenty minutes that passed, Morrigan was spared.
And then she wasn’t.
“Ha! I knew your luck would run out eventually!”
Morrigan sighed, tucked a wave of loose hair behind her ear and waited for the hammer to fall.
Lessa shifted, wiggled excitedly in her chair like a child about to share a dirty secret, and rounded on her twin. “I dare you to spend an hour in the haunted cupboard.”
The room erupted in a riot of noise, objections and cheers and one very loud and suggestive comment from Isabela that everyone ignored.
The sisters stared each other down, blue of the sky holding up against the hazy green of a drunken forest.
Morrigan was too tired to fight the war she knew brewed in her sister, and so conceded and bowed her head, “fine, but I get to take my wine and my snacks.”
She knew she had made a very big mistake when Lessa’s smile turned feral, too many teeth on show, and her eyes turned sharp.
She’d been duped.
She was led to the cupboard in question, a cloakroom more than a cupboard, and filled with nothing but shadows.
That there were no dead bodies propped up against the dank walls was a pleasant surprise. One couldn’t be too careful with Fenris.
They shut her in with childish taunts and left her in the dark with the echo of their attempts at being spooky, and not for the first time she wandered why she was friends with any of them.
She turned into the room, wine and food in hand, and sighed when the realisation struck her that the room was smaller than she’d thought and sitting would be just the wrong side of uncomfortable.
“It’s only for an hour,” she muttered, let her eyes close and tried her best to block out the sounds of her idiot friends in the background.
They were singing bawdy tavern songs about a disproportionate dwarf and the ladies he wooed, and that was enough for Aveline, who called it a night and left with a light tap on the door and an encouraging hang in there, Hawke.
Luckily for her, and her sanity, Morrigan had never shied away from the quiet, or the shadows, and found herself rather enjoying the reprieve from socializing.
Her eyes adjusted to the dark, her nose got used to the smell of damp wallpaper, and her wine went all too well with the cheeses she’d taken in with her.
She was rather enjoying herself.
And then something moved in the corner of the room.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, her heart stopped and restarted at a mad gallop, set to ringing in her ears.
She froze, stared into the dark and waited, for something, anything, for nothing.
She felt foolish when nothing jumped out at her, when nothing shrieked in her face, when nothing happened at all.
She shook it off, let out the breath she’d been holding –
And dropped her wine and plate with a scream when something touched her.
It was then the door burst open, the light blinding her before she was again shrouded in shadow and pushed further into the room.
“Enjoy!” Lessa sang, a grin in place as she shoved someone else in with her, and then slammed and locked the door behind her.
Morrigan panicked, a moment of weakness, and made for the door, but there was barely enough room for her in the closet let alone the new comer.
She paused, pushed everything down, and then cursed her sister to the Void.
She was going to kill her.
“I take it you fell afoul of your sister’s deviancy as well then?”
She sighed, pushed a hand through her hair and hoped for the ground to yawn open and swallow her whole.
Of course she’d been locked in a small space with Sebastian Vael.
Of course.
“I’m going to thoroughly destroy her,” she muttered by way of an answer, and blushed when his deep and heated laugh met her ears.
Too close.
She stepped away from him as quietly as she could and tried to put as much space between them as possible lest he somehow sense her rising nerves.
“Curious, that they chose this room, of all rooms. What’s not curious is that it smells of spilled wine. It’s that or blood in this house, if we’re honest.”
Morrigan smiled, giggled softly and then cut herself off because what was she doing.
“I’m sorry, that was me, I dropped my glass. I hope you’re not barefooted.”
“Dropped your glass? That doesn’t sound like the dexterous Morrigan I know.”
Her blush grew, burned down her throat and over the swell of her breasts. Her words failed her, came out skittish and wrong and grew in pitch until he calmed her, settled a hand on her arm and spoke with a smile in his voice.
“I meant nothing of it, Morrigan.”
His touch burned her, so much so that she shivered from the contrast of his warmth and the chill of the air around them.
And it was a mistake.
“Makers breath, you’re shaking.”
She tried to explain, tried to brush it off, but when he shifted, when he shrugged from his coat and settled it around her shoulders with a flourish, when he took to rubbing his hands up and down her arms, her words failed her and shrunk to nothing on her tongue.
And then she felt a breath across the back of her neck and all her embarrassment, all the space she’d tried to keep between them was gone, was forgotten as she threw herself at him and burrowed into the broad wall of his chest with a squeak.
And oh, but she should have known he would smell so good.
“Morrigan?”
She was afraid, then, afraid to look up, afraid to see the disapproval on his face, the disgust, the disappointment, and settled instead for clinging to his shirt, her eyes pinched closed against everything wrong with this night.
She should have stayed at home.
She waited, waited, waited for him to set her back, push her away, but it never came. Instead, his arms wrapped around her, practiced fingers spreading wide between her shoulder blades as the other hand took to stroking the long lengths of her hair soothingly.
His words, lowered and impossibly deep, were whispered against the crown of her head, and she shivered then, again, but for an entirely different reason.
“Easy, leannan, I’ve got you.”
Time meant nothing as he comforted her, slipped by them unnoticed as she pressed closer still, as he tightened his hold and wrapped her in warmth and safety, in the intoxicating blend of leather and woodsmoke, of metal and oils and something that was deeper, something that had no name but was simply him.
And when she finally pulled away, when she found his gaze in the dark, felt his breath mingle with hers, time wasn’t all she lost.
Her breath hitched when he moved, drew her closer with the hand at her back until space was gone and there was nothing but clothes between them.
There’s no room for the Maker, she thought, a whisper in the back of her head, a voice that sounded far too much like her teasing father.
He stole her breath completely with just a brush of his skin to hers, the warmth of his palm at her throat, thumb skating back and forth along her jaw.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
Her eyes fluttered closed when he gripped her tighter, moved just a little closer, a ghost of a kiss…
Maker, please don’t let this be a dream.
Then there was pressure, soft, gentle, a promise of more, and then there was nothing but light and noise and nothing keeping her from stumbling from his grasp as he let her go.
She fell against the wall, dazed and lost to her senses, and then she was awake, there, and confused.
She looked up, up, found his gaze, found him staring down at her with something that set fire roiling low in her belly, something that stole all of the strength from her knees and tore a whimper from between her tingling lips.
Cold washed over her, from left to right, a wave of something not right, not there, something other. She shivered from it, eyes never leaving his, heart racing.
And then sound came in, pushed through the silence, the moment.
“Have fun, did we?!”
The moment was gone.
She turned, broke the spell he was casting over her with nothing but the blue of his eyes, and stared at her sister, at the drunken grin on her face, wide and delighted and altogether too pleased with herself.
The anger came on fast, too fast, burned through her and set her hands to shaking, but it burned too hot, burned too fast and turned too quickly to tears that blurred her vision.
Nothing beyond getting away mattered.
She shoved her way out of that stupid not-cupboard, not caring for the stumbling, the lack of grace with which she normally moved. Her sister squawked as she pushed passed her, clung to the door to keep her feet and protested the rough treatment.
His protest cut deeper, dragged at her with fingers she felt all too keenly, but she had to leave, she had to get away, had to hide.
Fenris was waiting for her, and he said nothing as she approached, simply opened the door for her escape and held out her coat.
She breezed passed him, ignored his outstretched hand, her belongings, the look in his too-knowing eyes.
When she met the cold of Kirkwall’s air, when she stepped out into the embrace of night and shadow, the dam broke.
And as she sprinted through the dark streets of Kirkwall, embarrassment and pain wet streaks upon the pale of her cheeks, she saw nothing of the wisp that watched her go, ethereal and saddened and resigned to wait anew.